Cuts and Grazes
by Ithinkyoullknxw
Summary: He wants to be the best she's ever had.


She isn't there when he wakes up.

It's not that she is always there when he wakes because sometimes she sleeps in her own bed in the flat just next door. Nick knows this because on those nights he wakes up craving her. However last night she had fallen asleep beside him and so he expects to awaken to the lull of her head against his naked chest as she has been watching him sleep. Or maybe the feel of her legs pressed against his as she slept peacefully beside him still. As peacefully as he ever gets to see her these days.

Nick quickly jumped up and pulled on yesterdays trousers, still trying to get his shirt on as he wandered through to his front room, calling Carla's name. Her handbag was still where it had been the night before but this didn't settle the uneasy feeling that had filled Nicks stomach since he'd woken moments ago.

A small piece of paper caught his eye as he buttoned his shirt and leaving it half open he grabbed it, the familiar scrawl of his new girlfriend hitting him immediately.

 _Told ya I'd only hurt you in the end, Nicholas. Thanks for the ride, eh? You could have been the best I've ever had. Love always, C x_

So she was ending it already, he desiphered. And yet her bag and coat were against the sofa the pair had been sprawled across last night, hot, naked and sweaty. The only thing he saw missing was the keys to her car that she placed like clockwork on his coffee table. He had told her he liked how familiar it already seemed only a couple of days ago.

Slipping on his shoes and grabbing his coat, Nick rushed out of his flat and onto the brisk, cold street. He headed towards the Rovers, hoping maybe to find Carla already drowning her sorrows despite how early it was.

"Nick, I was just on my way to your flat. Do you have a spare moment?" Nick paused, flustered, "Er, well-"

"It's about Carla." Roy knew that would gain his full attention.

Nick turned to face Roy properly now, nodding, "Is everything okay, has she said something?"

"Not exactly. Well at least not in person anyway. I found this slipped under the door when I came to open up the cafe this morning." Roy handed Nick yet another piece of white paper. He'd put money on the likelihood of finding Michelle mulling over a similar handwritten note. He didn't quite catch the irony of that thought, taken aback by the words he was reading.

 _I'm sorry for any hurt I have ever caused you, Roy. You're doing Hayley proud. I only hope she will forgive me. Love always, C x_

Nicks hands shook slightly as the heaviness of what he was realising hit him. He quickly folded the paper into his pocket along with his own and rushed towards the Rovers, "I've gotta go, Roy. Call me if she gets in touch!" He didn't stop to wait for an answer as she pushed his way inside the Rovers door and was hit by a rush of warm air.

He found Michelle pacing back and forth behind the bar, the pub practically empty and he stopped to listen to her hurried conversation, "No you don't understand! She's tried to do this before!"

He wished he could hear the other person's responses.

"I do know! Yes look, the notes here. Yes I'll read it again." Michelle looked exasperated as she signalled for Nick to follow and they headed through to the back room.

"It says: _My Chelle. You're the best mate I could ever ask for and I truly love you, even if I don't show it. Look after yourself, for me. All my love, baby. C x"_

Nick could see the tears brimming in her eyes and he quickly passed her the folded papers from his pockets, sensing they may help with the urgency. He listened on helplessly as Michelle read the remaining notes and then finished the call.

"I don't understand, Nick. Why now, why this? I thought she'd realised how stupid it was after the last time!" Michelle threw her phone onto the sofa in a fury and brought her hand up to her mouth. She couldn't stand still, couldn't let the weight of what was happening hit her because she'd crumble and there was no time for that.

"Where the hell is she?!" He wasn't responding to her but he wasn't really talking to her at all. His thoughts were a complicated unfathomable mess and all he knew was how desperately he needed to find Carla.

Find her safe and alive.

Not a cold lifeless body.

Nick spend hours driving around after both he and Michelle gave a detailed description and a multitude of pictures of Carla to the police. He leaves Michelle at the pub, insisting she stays in case Carla returns or there is any news. Truth is he has no idea where to go. He hasn't quite worked out how to get into that complicated brain of hers yet and even if he had he thinks this would still remain a mystery. It's almost dark when he finally returns to the street and his heart is in a mouth as a police car pulls up outside the Rovers minutes after.

Nick doesn't think his heart beats again until he sees Carla huddled under a blanket as she climbs from the back seat and he calls her name in relief. He isn't sure how his legs managed to carry him anymore but the need to hold her gets him across the cobbled streets and in front of his girlfriend.

Carla's cheeks are tearstained and her eyes are red raw. He barely registers Tracy climbing out the police car too, only the way Carla's body shakes from cold and probably the emotion of what she is feeling. She lets her eyes meet his and her body fall against his chest and he feels everything she feels. The fear, the desperation to escape, the embarrassment. It's slowly eating her alive.

A while later and a more composed Carla sits opposite Nick in the pub. She has been smothered by her desperate best friend for the best part of an hour but now she sits in almost peace with a large red wine and Nicks eyes that almost never leave her, scared she'll disappear if he stops watching her for a moment.

"Where did you go?"

Carla's eyes fall to her lap and she cannot bring herself to look at him, "The quarry." She barely even sounds like herself.

"The quarry?!" His pain is evident. That was not a cry for help that was a full proof escape plan. "You really were going to."

Again, her eyes don't meet his, "Well I failed the first time didn't I, thought I may as well get it right the second." She gulps the red wine that used to feel so good against her throat but now it just feels wrong somehow. She uses it to escape except now, what is she escaping from?

He can't bare to talk about it anymore when they are so public and he cannot hold her against his chest, he cannot feel her skin on his and the beating of her soft heart humming away. Because she is soft, deep down. Soft and needing. Clingy. That is partly why she had fallen into such a pit of despair, desperate for forgiveness she didn't even need. She needs to be loved, protected, wanted even. She has rarely been given what she deserves. He hopes now the truth is out they can start to build a future together because he means it when he says he will not be pushed away.

"Come on. I'm taking you home."

She doesn't need telling twice because home with him is the only place she wants to be now and a short while later, Nick lays across the sofa in just some tracksuit bottoms and pulls her top from her body. She sighs in relief as she gets the skin to skin contact he knows she craves and her body moulds against his. It's nice to be held in such an intimate way by someone she knows will not initiate anything else, because like her, he gets so much comfort from just simple things. It's been so long since she has felt a soft touch like his.

Nick doesn't ask her anymore about the day because he isn't sure he wants to know anymore. If he does he may never let her out of his sight again. He has just got her, he's not willing to let her go. So instead he silently holds her. Kissing her hair occasionally and watching as he sees her so relaxed. It makes his heart swell that he can do that for her and he knows now that he has gotten her through this, he can get her through anything.

He thinks back in the silent moments to when someone told him something a long time ago. You should always be careful when trying to fix a broken person for you may cut yourself on their shattered pieces.

But as an exhausted Nick looks down at the sleeping form in his arms, her hand resting against his bare chest, so against him even as she slumbers, he decides that just maybe a few cuts and grazes will be worth it.

He knows now, more than ever, that all he wants to do is be the best she's ever had.


End file.
